Improvement in letter-box door-frames



UnrrEn STATES PATENT OFFICE.

CHARLES J. OLEMENTS AND EDWIN P. FOWLER, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

IMPROVEMENT IN LETTER-BOX DOOR-FRAMES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 147,902, dated February 24, 1574; application filed March l2, 1873.

To all whom it 'may concern:

Be it known that we, CHARLES J. CLEM- ENTs and EDwrN P. FoWLEE, of New York, in the county of New York and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Letter-Box Door-Frames 5 and we do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, and to the letters or" reference marked thereon, which form a part of this specication.

The nature of our invention consists in the construction and mode of attaching the doors and-frames of lock letter-boxes to the boxes or pigeon-holes, as will be hereinafter more fully set forth.

In order to enable others skilled in the art to which our invention appertains to make and use the same, we will now proceed to describe its construction and operation, referring to the annexed drawing, in which- Figure l is a front view of a oase with lockl letterboxes. Fig. 2 is a front view of one of the doors with 'its frame. Fig. 3 shows one of the screw-rods, by which the door-frames are held in place; and Fig. 4 is an end view of a cast-metal support used in the construction of the boxes or pigeonholes.

A represents a case, of any suitable dimensions, provided with any desired number of horizontal and vertical partitions, B B, forming boxes or pigeon-holes.

Ordinarily these boxes or pigeon-holes are made by insert-ing partitions .either vertically or horizontally running the entire height or length of the box, and then spacing off with smaller partitions 3 but in this case we make the partitions for the pigeon holes or boxes all separate, and connect them by means of grooved supports, C O, made of cast or other metal, into which grooves both the vertical and horizontal partitions are easily inserted.

E represents the frame for the doors D. These frames are made independent of each other, having thecorners cut out, as shown at b, for the reception of the bolt, so that one bolt-head will, when coming in, or at four corners, as shown at C, Fig. l, hold the four cor-V tion, c, running longitudinally its entire length,

for a purpose presently described. G represents metal rods, having a head upon one end and a screw-nut, a, upon the other. This rod is entered upon or from the front of the frames passing through the perforations formed by cutting away the corners of the frames E, and

.passing through the perforations c the entire length of the supports C, and fastened upon the rear side of the pigeon holes or boxes by the nut a, thus forming a metal surrounding the entire length of the rod G from front to rear, so that it is impossible to remove the rod only from the rear, where the postmaster or other authorized person can readily loosen the necessary nuts to remove one or more of the frames and doors. On the sides, top, and bottom of the frame the rods Gr pass through the joints of the partitions.

The advantages presented by our device is, that each frame and doorforming the series of frames and doors-are independent of each other, and in case the key is lost by the proper authorized person, the door to which it bclongs can readily be detached and changed for any other door and frame in the series, and the numbers changed to correspond, by which change the necessity of a new lock is avoided 5 and, further, it is impossible for any one but those authorized to change or remove the doors and frames, and by having the doors and frames independent of each other, the

number of doors and frames in the series can be conveniently increased and decreased at pleasure.

Having thus fully described our invention, what we claim, and desire to secure by LetA ters Patent, is

The door-frames attached to a structure 2 mmm@ In testimony that We claim the foregoing as our own We afx our signatures 1n presence of two Witnesses.

CHARLES J. CLEMENTS. EDY/VIN P. FOVLER.

Witnesses:

WM. K. ELLIS, l JOHN A. ELLIS. 

